Download Submarine Crashes into Uncharted Seamount

University of Massachusetts - Amherst
ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst
Ethics in Science and Engineering National
Clearinghouse
Science, Technology and Society Initiative
6-17-2008
Case study: Submarine Crashes into Uncharted
Seamount
Dawn Wright
Oregon State University
David DiBiase
Penn State University
Francis Harvey
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
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Recommended Citation
Wright, Dawn; DiBiase, David; and Harvey, Francis, "Case study: Submarine Crashes into Uncharted Seamount" (2008). Ethics in
Science and Engineering National Clearinghouse. 288.
http://scholarworks.umass.edu/esence/288
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Case study: Submarine Crashes into Uncharted Seamount
Version 0.2 • June 17, 2008
Authors: Dawn Wright (Department of Geosciences, Oregon State University), David DiBiase
(Dutton e-Education Institute, Penn State University), and Francis Harvey (Department of
Geography, University of Minnesota)
Reviewers: Michael Davis (Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of
Technology), Chuck Huff (Department of Psychology, St. Olaf College), and Matthew Keefer
(Division of Educational Psychology, University of Missouri-St. Louis).
This work was supported by National Science Foundation grant # GEO-0734888. See below for
terms of use.
Case (for presentation to students)
On January 8, 2005, the nuclear submarine USS San Francisco ran aground enroute from Guam
to Brisbane, Australia in one of the worst submarine accidents in U.S. naval history. This was a
terrible accident made more bizarre by the fact that the submarine crashed into a large seamount
(an underwater volcano), rising 2000 m from the surrounding ocean floor. This was definitely a
feature that should have appeared on the submarine’s navigational charts so that it could have
been avoided. Four minutes before the crash the submarine’s sonar measured a false depth of
2000 m. The crash actually occurred at a depth of ~160 m, while traveling at a speed of 33 knots
or ~38 mph (by comparison the average cruising speed of most oceanographic research vessels
is 10-12 knots). The impact of the collision punched huge holes in the forward ballast tanks of the
sub (Figure 1), which in turn shut down the throttles, and caused the sub to drift listlessly, its bow
pointing down. Luckily, the sub’s nuclear reactor and the crew’s quarters were not compromised.
However, one crewman was killed in the accident and 115 were injured. The rest of the crew
managed to keep the sub from sinking during a harrowing 30-hour, 360-mile transit back to
Guam.
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Fig. 1. Photograph of the USS San Francisco in dry dock after the accident (courtesy of David
Sandwell, Scripps Institution of Oceanography). Note the men walking within the orange, gated
area on top of the submarine for scale.
The commander of the USS San Francisco accepted full blame for the incident, acknowledging
several critical mistakes, including traveling too fast given the lack of existing data on their
navigational chart, not taking enough forward soundings to ensure that their path was really clear,
and failing to cross-check the route with other charts. Subsequent interviews with the
commander, with fifteen other officers and enlisted men, as well as a review of Navy reports,
raises questions about the training and support of U.S. submariners in general, but also the
relatively primitive state of nautical charts upon which the crews rely. To wit, Navy officials
reported that the main navigational chart in use by the crew, was prepared in 1989 by the
Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) and had never been revised. The chart did not show any
potential obstacles within three nautical miles of the crash (Figure 2). Soon after the incident,
Department of Defense (DoD) officials reported finding a Landsat satellite image from 1999
showing a seamount rising to within 100 feet of the sea surface in the area of the crash (as
indicated by subtle variations in water color). Why hadn’t the DMA updated their 1989 charts to
show this feature? Navy officials said that the incident occurred in an area that was no longer of
high priority for updating bathymetry (ocean floor topography) due to the cessation of the Cold
War. Although the Navy began basing submarines out of Guam in 2002, it has focused
improvement of its nautical charts in the shallow coastal waters of the Middle East as part of the
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“war on terror.” The DMA had also consistently lacked the resources to properly compile, convert
and interpret satellite data for the systematic updating of charts, nor had it been able to fully
ensure the accuracy, precision, resolution, and validity of current charts. This agency has since
been absorbed into the DoD’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), for the provision of
maps, nautical charts and other geographic intelligence to the nation's combat forces.
Fig. 2. Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) nautical chart of 1989 with the location marked of the
submarine’s collision with the seamount (Sandwell and Wessel, 2006). Note the paucity of
soundings in the DMA’s database for this part of the western Pacific.
Mapping of the global ocean floor remains one of the grand challenges of oceanography.
Humankind has made more progress during the past 20 years of mapping the surface of our
moon, Venus and Mars than during the past 500 years of mapping the oceans. Sandwell et al.
(2003) estimates that it will take another 125 years to fully map the ocean floor at a resolution of
200 m, the level of detail needed for most geological studies and deep nautical charts. An even
higher resolution is needed for global nearshore ocean resource management, conservation, and
spatial planning. The cost of this effort is estimated at $1 billion. The damage to the USS San
Francisco was estimated at $1 billion. How many oceanographic mapping expeditions or satellite
altimeter missions could have been funded with that lost money?
Partly as a result of the USS San Francisco incident, the NGA entered into a memorandum of
agreement (MOA) with the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, the National
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Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to improve
predicted bathymetry for the world’s oceans. This July 2005 MOA includes ongoing efforts to:
1) retrack all satellite radar altimetry data for gravity field improvement (funded by NSF, NOAA,
and petroleum exploration companies and now mostly complete);
2) edit/rescue bathymetry data from about 1800 archived seagoing expeditions (funded by the
Office of Naval Research or ONR);
3) construct a 1-minute global bathymetry grid for delivery to the parties of the MOA (funded by
ONR and recently completed); and
4) perform scientific studies with the improved data (ongoing).
Sources
Drew, C. (2005). Submarine crash shows Navy had gaps in mapping system, The New York
Times, January 15, 2005. Retrieved 16 June 2008 from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fnews/1321233/posts
Drew, C. (2005). For U.S. submarine, a crash, chaos, and then relief: Series of mistakes led to
Navy accident, International Herald Tribune, May 19, 2005. Retrieved 16 June 2008 from
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/18/news/boat.php?page=1
Hamilton, R.A. (2005). Post script to “Nuclear submarine, USS San Francisco, runs into
seamount on Saturday the 8th of January 2005,” Ahoy – Mac’s Web Log (Mackenzie J.
Gregory and the Naval Historical Society of Australia, Inc.), Retrieved 16 June 2008 from
http://ahoy.tk-jk.net/macslog/NuclearSubmarineUSSSanFra.html
Sandwell, D., Gille, S., Orcutt, J.A. and Smith W. (2003). Bathymetry from space is now possible,
Eos, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 84 (5), 37, 44.
Sandwell, D.T., and Wessel, P. (2006). The global distribution of seamounts from ship depth
soundings and satellite altimetry, Proceedings of the Seamount Biogeosciences Network
Workshop, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA. Retrieved 16 June 2008 from
http://earthref.org/events/SBN/2006
Staff (2005), Submarine News Daily, February 14, 2005. Retrieved 16 June 2006 from
http://subveteran.org/SSN%20711/050214%20Damaged%20Sub%20To%20Be%20Assesse
d%20Off%20Island.htm
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Resources for teachers
Suggested discussion points
1. Which of the GISCI Rules of Conduct pertain to this case?
2. How could the USS San Francisco disaster have been averted? What lessons can a GIS
professional take away from this incident, even if he/she has never served in the military?
3. What is the role of metadata in this case study? What are the implications of poor data quality
to navigation of vessels/vehicles at sea or on land?
4. What kinds of queries are needed to search a database for a “seamount”? What are the best
ways of delivering the data? [Note that there is currently a very interesting ontology issue that
oceanographers are wrestling with: “seamount” can also translate to "knoll," "bump," "abyssal
hill," "rifted margin," "active vs. inactive.”]
Relevant GISCI Rule of Conduct
Section I, Number 5: “We shall not knowingly perpetuate bad or outdated data. We shall include
all disclaimers (where applicable) about the current condition of the data at the time of creation
and/or the original intent of the data.”
Epilogue
Hamilton (2005) reported that a subsequent investigation into the USS San Francisco incident
found that numerous warnings of shortcomings in the ship’s navigation department existed at
least 1 year before the accident and that in a January 2004 inspection, the crew did not properly
use its fathometer warning system and its electronic voyage management system. Secret
documents later declassified by the Navy revealed further that other charts aboard the sub did in
fact clearly display a navigational hazard in the vicinity of the collision. On February 12, 2005 the
commander of the USS San Francisco was issued a letter of reprimand by the U.S. Navy and
permanently relieved of his command, effectively ending his naval career.
Further resources
Text
Wright, D.J. (2002). Undersea with GIS, ESRI Press: Redlands, CA.
Web
Enduring Resources for Earth Sciences Education (ERESE) (2004). The formation of seamounts.
Last accessed 16 June 2008 from http://earthref.org/cgi-bin/er.cgi?s=erese.cgi?m=8
Sandwell, D.T. (2003). Satellite geodesy, global topography, measured and estimated seafloor
topography. Last access 16 June 2008 from
http://topex.ucsd.edu/marine_topo/mar_topo.html
Wright, D.J. (2006). Davey Jones’ Locker Seafloor Mapping/Marine & Coastal GIS: Treasure
chest of web links. Last accessed 16 June 2008 from http://seafloormapping.net
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Terms of use
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